Immingham power station

Immingham power station (also known as Conoco Philips Power Station) is a gas-fired combined heat and power (CHP} plant in North Lincolnshire, England. The £350m plant, which is owned by ConocoPhillips, is sited within the Humber Refinery, providing electricity and heat for the refinery's processes. Excess steam goes to the neighbouring Lindsey Oil Refinery with excess electricity exported to the National Grid.

The power station is situated on the south bank of the Humber Estuary, north of the town of Immingham. Its generating capacity of 730 megawatts makes it Europe's largest CHP plant. The station has been operated by energy company ConocoPhillips since it opened in 2004.

History
Plans for the power station began in 1998, when ways to provide power for both refineries were investigated. Due to the low price of electricity when the designs for the station began in 2004, the plant would have not been economically viable unless tax-incentives were given by the UK government. These were in the form of exemption from the UK Climate Change Levy and greater offsets against tax for the plant's depreciation. It was opened on November 1 2004 by Margaret Beckett.

In October 2006, ConocoPhillips approved a £210m extension of the plant to produce 1,180MW. The new Phase II plant is expected to be opened in the summer of 2009, producing an extra 450MW. It will consist of one 285MWe gas turbine, one HRSG and a 200MWe steam turbine.

The power station trades as Immingham CHP LLP.

Specification
Two 260MW General Electric Frame 9 (9001FA) gas turbines generate electricity with the exhaust gas from each heating a Nooter Eriksen heat recovery steam generator. The steam from each these HRSGs transfers to a steam turbine. The two 115MWe steam turbines are built by Franco Tosi Meccanica based in Legnano in the Italian province of Milan. There are also two auxiliary boilers. Each boiler can provide 50% of the steam needs for each refinery. It normally exports around a minimum of 150MW to the National Grid, but this can be increased depending on the needs of the Grid and the two refineries. The plant is about 70% thermally efficient. The refinery operations need around 25MW of electricity. Each steam turbine uses a maximum of 300 tonnes of steam per hour. Around 190 tonnes per hour of steam goes to the Humber Refinery, and around 160 tonnes per hour goes to the Lindsey Refinery.

Carbon Capture and Storage Bid
The Immingham power station has been proposed by ConocoPhillips as the site for a Carbon Capture and Storage demonstration plant. In a presentation on behalf of ConocoPhillips, Cal Cooper noted that there are approximately 80 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions within 50 miles, approximately 14% of UK emissions. He identified 15 million tonnes of liquid 15 million tonnes of capacity which could be transported by a 28" pipeline via a new pipeline to to depleted gas reservoir.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * United Kingdom and coal
 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Carbon Capture and Storage demonstration projects worldwide
 * Carbon Capture and Storage in the United Kingdom

External resources

 * CCGTs in northern England
 * ConocoPhillips site
 * UK operations of ConocoPhillips
 * Combined Heat and Power Association
 * Possible carbon-capture project (PDF)

External articles

 * Ben Harrington, "Conoco looks to sell Immingham plant", Telegrpah.co.uk, January 28, 2008.